In the last couple of weeks, I’ve been lucky enough to attend two awesome workshops on two subject that are probably as unrelated as possible. (But that makes it all that more fun!) Both were tons of fun and great learning experiences.

Processing 2 with Jer Thorp

One of my project files from the class

Jer has been running these Processing workshops for a while, both in Vancouver and now in New York. Finally, schedules aligned and I was able to attend! I had a little bit of a background in processing going into it, and I feel 100% more processing smart after the workshop.

Jer started us out with a fairly simple project and built up from there over the course of the day. The most valuable part was the explanations behind the approach Jer took with the examples and how he’d used similar techniques in his own projects. My only regret was that I couldn’t make it back for the data viz workshop.

He’s running another set of workshops in June. If there’s still space, you should get yourself a spot!

Sign Painting Class

There’s some kind of irony in the fact that this class happened because of a twitter exchange between Matt Braun and myself. As it turns out, Matt knew a guy who had been a sign painter for years and who was also willing to let a few of us into his studio to show us how it was done.

Tom watching Steph, Rachel & Josh hard at work.

We rounded up four of our most typenerdy friends and spent an afternoon in a barn studio learning the basics of sign painting. And I mean the very very basics! Sign painting is most definitely a craft! It takes a whole different way of thinking about letters when you’re used to computers and bezier handles.

Tom was a wonderful instructor. He was amazingly patient and answered all of our questions. Even more amazing is how even after just 2 hours of practice, all of us showed visible improvement.

We all got brushes and paint to keep up our practice at home and there’s even plans to go back for a second class later this summer. Exciting!